Malcassiro
by ROGfan
Summary: He'll do anything to talk about her with someone who remembers.


The Doctor should have known that Rose, even though she was no longer here, would never stop amazing him with the things she made possible. Here he and Martha were, at the end of all the universe, with a man who by rights should be dead. A man who _had_ died, a lifetime ago back at the Game Station on Satellite Five.

The problem is, though, Jack is very much _not_ dead. And The Doctor can't help but hate him a little, that Jack can be alive and well in this universe when the person who's made it possible for that to happen is kept apart from both of them in a parallel universe. He hates feeling like that, hating someone so irrationally, but rational sense is a concept he is – in the main - unfamiliar with since he's lost Rose. And yet at the same time as hating Jack, The Doctor is drawn to him; Jack, the one person left alive in this universe who understands exactly what Rose was – is – to him.

So here they both are dealing with a room full of lethal Stet radiation – Jack inside, he outside – which has already killed at least one man; and, The Doctor supposes, this is probably the best chance he'll get to tell Jack the truth about who made him immortal – and what's happened to her. The bonus being that Jack is on the other side of the door to him and can't throttle him (not immediately, at any rate).

"How long have you known?" Jack's voice is low and dangerous; the Doctor's completely unsurprised. He _would_have been surprised if Jack had spoken to him in his usual happy tone.

"Ever since I ran away from you." The two of them stare at each other; Jack breathing heavily. The Doctor's tone changes, and nonchalantly he says "Good luck." Jack looks at him, still breathing heavily, before beginning the job he was in the radiation chamber to do in the first place. "When did you realise?" The Doctor asks Jack as a way to kick-start the conversation, not because he particularly wants to know. He doesn't really want to have this conversation at all, as he knows full well it's going to end with him spilling his guts about what's happened to Rose, and even now – after all this time – he doesn't think he can stand to do it.

"1892. Got in a fight on Ellis Island. A man shot me through the heart. And then I woke up." The Doctor raises an eyebrow; despite himself, he's intrigued. Jack continues, in what is pretty much a monotone. "Thought it was kind of strange. But then it never stopped. Fell off a cliff, trampled by horses, World War I, World War II. Poison, starvation, a stray javelin." The Doctor winced in sympathy.

"Ooh."

"In the end," Jack said, in a bitter tone that grates on the Doctor's ears, "I got the message. I'm the man who can never die." The Doctor says nothing, knowing that nothing he _can_ say is going to make any real difference. "And all that time, _you knew_." Jack's tone is like a whip and it _hurts_. The Doctor chooses his next words _very_ carefully, all too aware that he's likely to be misconstrued all the same.

"That's why I left you behind. It's not easy, just, just looking at you, Jack, 'cause you're wrong." The next thing out of Jack's mouth is vicious and fair _drips_ with venom.

"_Thanks_!" That, too, hurts; The Doctor's babbling changes to a tone that's – almost – apologetic.

"You _are_. I can't help it! I'm a Time Lord, it's instinct. It's in my guts. You're a fixed point in time and space, you're a fact. That's never meant to happen. Even the TARDIS reacted against you, tried to shake you off. Flew all the way to the end of the universe just to get rid of you."

"So, what you're saying is that you're prejudiced?" The Doctor is shocked that Jack should think that of him, and the slightly disbelieving tone of his answer reflects this.

"I never thought of it like that." Jack smiles at him, but the smile holds no humour and quite a large amount of contempt.

"Shame on you." The Doctor has the grace to look ashamed of himself.

"Yeah." He's steeling himself for what he knows is coming next. And, Jack being Jack, he doesn't disappoint him. Jack's tone is conversational, but with a distinct edge to it that sharpens as he finishes what he has to say.

"Last thing I remember, back when I was mortal, I was facing three Daleks, death by extermination. Then I came back to life. _What happened_?" The Doctor swallows visibly and then starts speaking, in a tone that suggests he is very, very close to tears.

"Rose." Jack sounds surprised.

"I thought you sent her back home?" The Doctor continues, his voice showing his pride in what Rose managed to do, but always, always full of a tone of such wistfulness and regret that Jack just doesn't understand. If Rose is alive and happy, why is The Doctor in such a mess over her, he wonders; more to the point, if she's alive and happy why is she not with him?

"She came back. Opened the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the Time Vortex itself." Jack's frustrated; The Doctor's babbling was all well and good, but occasionally it got on his nerves.

"What does that _mean_, exactly?" And, just his luck, The Doctor chooses just that time to wax lyrical and reminisce.

"No one's ever meant to have that power. If a Time Lord did that, he'd become a god, a vengeful god. But she was human." He broke off for a couple of seconds as the memories of that time on Satellite Five came back to haunt him. Even now he could remember every single thing about that time when Rose, holding on to the Time Vortex, became a Goddess of Time and saved him from his worst enemies. And saved him from himself. His tone changed to something so sad and melancholy that Jack's spine prickled with precognition, knowing without being told that something had happened to Rose and, whatever it was, it wasn't good. "Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life. But she couldn't control it, she brought you back forever. Still that's something though. The final act of the Time War was life."

"Do you think she could change me back?" And The Doctor finds, as he suspected he would, that the pain of remembering Rose is as raw and fresh and visceral as it has always been. _How am I ever going to tell him? I'm going to have to tell him the truth, and if it doesn't kill me **he** might well do it for me._ He takes a deep breath and starts talking, rushing through it as if to ward off the final killing blow he knows is coming.

"I took the power out of her. She's gone, Jack. She's not just _living_ on a parallel world, she's _trapped_ there. The walls have closed." His eyes fill with tears as the pain overwhelms him. Jack looks at him wordlessly before saying the only thing he _can_ say, woefully inadequate as it is, in a voice full of disbelieving pity.

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor's voice breaks as yet again he struggles to come to terms with his hated new reality. He doesn't want to talk about it, he just wants to go and hide; scream and weep for a little while until the pain is dulled again. He suspects he isn't going to have the luxury. His answer to Jack is as short as he can make it, because he knows if he speaks more than a couple of words he is going to make himself look like a complete idiot by bursting into tears in front of Jack, and he doesn't want to do that. His grief is still an intensely private thing and he can't share it, not even with Jack.

"Yep."

And Jack starts babbling now, himself; The Doctor wishes he would just _shut up_ about it, although he knows that Jack, too, needs to talk about it; he suspects, also, that although Jack doesn't know just how exquisitely painful every thought and mention of her is, he is the only one who could _possibly_ have any kind of idea.

"I went back to her estate in the nineties, just once or twice. Watched her growing up. Never said hello, timelines and all that." The Doctor nods, wordlessly, lost for a second in bittersweet memories before he finally figures out the one thing he can say to Jack that'll make him shut _up_ about Rose.

"Do you want to die?"


End file.
